St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-29

profoundly serious, and that led my thoughts
out upon a line that has caused me much
concern and deep study ever since. There
are key notes in the architecture of cities, in
the architecture of human life in the archi-
lecture of human character. In the moral
world there are key notes as truly as there
are key notes in the musical world. j have
seen cities in this country where the key
notes are absolutely discernible to every man
that went into them and stayed twenty-four
hours there, and generally the key note was
whisky. Laughter. And most everything
i'll the town was saturated, saturated with
that damnable broth OF hell. The business
was permeated with it until there was hardly
a business man in the whole community
who was gody enough to believe that the
business of the town could be run without
liquor. Must have bar rooms, must have
liquor selling, must have license, must sell
this damnable stuff and let it run riot in
that community to damn that people, to breed
dissension and strife, to make pauperism a
crime, to keep the courts running, to keep
lawyers busy, and business men tied up on
juries, poor houses in full blast aud aims
giving and charities continually called upon.
My own city of Atlanta was one of them once,
where the key note was whisky, and nothing
but whisky. 1t was the prominent element
in the business of the town. We didn't even
have saloon dead-line like you have got
here; but thank God we have got one now;
and a saloon dead-line in Atlanta, Georgia,
to-day is drawn at the county limits, and it
is worth $500 clip to pass that line and
sell liquor. Great applause and clappi ing.
Whisky is no longer
THE KEY NOTE
OF our municipal architecture in the city of
Atlanta. And what has been done in At
lanta aud what is being done in other cities
throughout this country every day and every
month can be done here In Minneapolis and
w
your saloon dead line until it embraces Ram
sey county and Minnesota if you want to.
Why, we have what we please in this world,
don't you know that? Whenever the aggre
gate public opinion of a community or of
state decide to have thing, we have it. We
are almost omnipoteut in the things we de-
eide that we want and must have. You want
public exposition, but it don't make any
difference what it costs, you have it. You
want new bridge across the river now-no
man particularly interested in it-but you
will take down bridge that ought to last
fifty years longer aud build bigger one.
You want public building here and you
send up to Washington and demand it and
you get it. You want state capitol over
at ST. Paul. Why, you just simply
say, I'VE will have it, and you got
it. Very poor affair, understand, after
you got it, Laughter. But whatever
people, whatever Il community want in this
country, they have it. The people of the
United States of America wanted an inter-
state commerce law. We have got It, and
then we cry out for its suspension. You see
you have whatever you want, whether you
know what it is before you get it or not.
Whatever the people decide they want, and
must have, they can have. l asked a man
how nany bar rooms he had in Minneapolis?
He said about 800 reckon. Well. said l, do
you want them? Oh, nc, l don't want them.
amt got any use for them. l says, what
are you doing with them? ''Oh, well, amt
responsible for them; L can't do anything
about it," You know that is not so. You
have 800 bar rooms in the city of Minneap-
oils 1t is an evidence and an advertisement
to the world that Minneapolis wants 800 bar
rooms, and therefore, she has got them. and
whenever you don't want them, why you
CLOSE THEM UP.
If a man set off and folds his arms and says:
81 don't want them: have got no use for
them; never go into them; I've got no in
tereSt in them, and l am not responsible;
wash my hands of the whole concern l say
to you. my brother, you cannot wash your
hands of the whole concern before the great
God, who is true and just, until you have eX-
hausted all the powers that God has given
you, both individually and as q citizen, with
your almost omnipotent ballot; until you have
exhausted all OF these you are not discharged
before mankind and before God. But just as
long as you value party above purity, just as
long as you value party above righteousness,
as long as you value party and party success
above sobriety and the salvation of these de-
bauched thousands in your community, just
that long you are going to be responsible for
voting for the men that keep is-aamnable
thing upon those people. Applause. |
l was born and raised a WOOL
hat Democrat. I have been as true and loysh
to the Democratic party as any map that car
ried the shibboleth Of the party upon his
hox Z,
voted for it, and canrassed the state for It's
interest, and say to you l am as good a
Democrat to-day as Christian can be. But
there is not power enough in all the Democ-
racy in America to make me vote for q man,
or any institution, party or platform that will
tolerate for moment the propagation of the
whisky business upon any community in
America. Claps and great applause. And
as long as you love your Democracy or love
your RepublicaniSm better than you love
dying souls, better than you love the prin-
ciples of Jesus Christ, better than you love
the integrity of your own nature, then you
are going to be responsible for t he continu-
ance of this
DAMNABLE TRAFFIC
in this country. People have said to me, 81
don't think you ought to talk about all these
side issues and prohibition in the pulpit
But that is what got me away from the 10y
atty pledged and vowed to my WIFE That
owed to my children. That is what carried
me away from the service OF Christ to the
service of the devil. That is what carried me
into the very fumes of the sulphurous mouth
of hell, and Jesus Christ redeemed me from it
all. And now l am going to fight the thing
that is damning so many thousands of other
men as it was damning me. [ would not
stand in any cowardly pulpit, in America or
in any other land, where they would paddock
my mouth upon this subject. l would not
step my foot into the pusilanimous pulpit run
by pusilanimous crowd that would want me
to stay my voice or hold my hand from
the greatest enemy Jesus Christ has gor in the
world to-day. Applause. Let me tell you
people another thing that, if that Bible is true
it is as true as the Bible itself, and that is as
long as you keep up these institutions in your
midst for making drunkardS and orphans and
criminals, as long as you keep these 800 fac
tories at work night and day in your midst
turning out this terrible crop. all your alms-
giving and your charitable organizations and
all your charitable institutions are so many
insults to God. Cries OF that is So You
cannot run 300 criminal factories inside the
limits of the city of Minneapolis and then
bribe God with an orphan asylum; you can't
run all these gambling institutions and all
these places of RIGHTEOUSNESS and all these
places of human debauchery in the midst
of this growing city of Minneapolis and then
bribe God with your little charitable institu-
tions and fairs and strawberry and
ICE CREAM FESTIVALS.
If you want to please God, if you want to
do mighty work for humanity, and if you
want to save souls alive, stop your factories,
and then you won't need your charitable Or
ganizations, or orphan homes, nor poor
houses, nor your inebriate asylums. You
see that is so much wasted.sWe have what we
want, and whatever we have got is plain adj.
vertisement to the world Of what we want.
and it is the sure index to the character of
the people that inhablt the town. A deaf
and dumb man who couldn't talk. end who
couldn't write, and who couldn't hear, could
come into Minneapolis and write correct
essay as to the character of the people by
Just keeping his eyes open. And u heather,
enlightened and educated in the universities